


Throw The Dice

by Navigatrix



Category: Black Sails
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-26
Updated: 2020-11-26
Packaged: 2021-03-09 20:00:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,571
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27721799
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Navigatrix/pseuds/Navigatrix
Summary: In which Hope and Anne Bonny have a Bechdel Test-passing girls night, pirate-style. Set shortly after Chapter 3 of The Heart of Admiration by ifinkufreaky.
Relationships: Charles Vane/Original Character(s), Charles Vane/Original Female Character(s)
Comments: 7
Kudos: 8





	Throw The Dice

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [The Heart of Admiration](https://archiveofourown.org/works/24341695) by [ifinkufreaky](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ifinkufreaky/pseuds/ifinkufreaky). 



“Didn’t think you would stay on with us.”

At Anne’s voice, Hope looks up from the knife she’s sharpening. “I meant what I said. I like it here.”

Anne plops herself down in the shade beside Hope and begins sharpening one of her cutlasses. “Didn’t think we needed a navigator to cut into all our shares, neither. We was doing just fine without one.”

“And I imagine you were wary about another woman joining the crew, because we always have to be twice as good as the men for half the credit. Always having to prove our worth and getting our abilities questioned in ways they never do. If they fuck up, they’re having a bad day. If we fuck up, these arseholes jump up and down about how no woman should ever be on the account.”

Anne gives Hope an approving nod. “Thought you was some posh cunt, too good to get your hands dirty. Didn’t think you had it in you to kill a man, or tell off the Guthrie bitch.”

This, Hope knows, is as close to an apology as she’ll ever get for the way Anne had initially given her the cold shoulder. “Had to go over the side when I was apprenticing. Couldn’t claim to be a proper pirate if all I couldn’t hold my own in a fight, even if the _Crown_ ,” -- Hope spits the word as though it tasted foul -- ”would hang me either way.”

Anne tests the edge of her sword with her thumb. “Let’s go get a drink.”

“We’re all barred from the tavern.” Hope smiles ruefully. “Which is half my fault.”

Anne shrugs her shoulders inside her faded sea coat. “S’okay. She waters the rum.” She huffs out the closest thing to a laugh Hope has seen from her. “Bitch is going to lose a lot of money without us spending our coin in there.”

Given the _Ranger_ crew’s propensity for drunkenness and debauchery when they’re flush, that’s certainly true. It is equally true that they’ve had less coin to spend since the night Vane stormed out of Eleanor Guthrie’s office. That Hope then told her off as well did nothing to help the situation. But perhaps there’s a way for them to line their pockets and get in a jab at Nassau’s despot simultaneously...

“I saw the _Nightingale_ come in with a decent prize today,” Hope muses.

Anne looks at her sharply from beneath the brim of her hat. “That lead should have been ours.”

Hope smiles a harsh smile, mischief in her eyes. “I have a mind to relieve them of some of their earnings. Take what’s ours, as you say.”

Anne cocks her head to one side. “How?”

“I play them at dice, you make sure they don’t run out on their bets, and we split the winnings. Equal shares.”

A slow knife-edge of a grin spreads across Anne’s face. “Let’s go.”

\----------------------------

In her boots, trousers, and much-mended sea coat with her weapons at her waist, Hope knows she is unlikely to be mistaken for a whore even in a dive at the back of the town such as the one where much of the _Nightingale_ crew is celebrating their take. Moreover, Anne Bonny’s well-earned reputation for ferocity is such that Hope, while wary, isn’t terribly concerned that any of the _Nightingale_ crew would try anything with her that she and Anne couldn’t handle. Eleanor had described them as “more civilized” than Vane’s crew when she tried manipulating Hope into leaving the _Ranger_ , as though being “more civilized” would be a selling point.

Anne leads Hope toward the table where the _Nightingale_ captain and some of his men are playing dice. She then steps back to lean against a post, watching, her hat keeping her face in shadow, while Hope approaches them with a hip-swinging walk that verges on a swagger. “Good evening, gents. Cut me into this game?”

Their captain, a wiry man named Henk, looks surly, almost as surly as Vane when he’s in a mood, but without Vane’s wolfish handsomeness or fierce physical presence. He looks her up and down.“Aren’t you that little bitch of a navigator who Vane poached?”

Hope nods agreeably, not willing to give him the satisfaction of taking insult. “Yes, that’s exactly who I am.” She flashes him a half-smile, hand on her hip, and pulls an overfull full coin purse from her pocket, hefting it in her hand to draw the men’s attention.

“Heard you told the Guthrie woman to go fuck herself.”

Hope forces her expression to remain pleasant as she switches the purse to her other hand. “Word does travel fast on this island.”

“She hates you, you know.”

Hope brings her head down quickly to look at the purse in her hand, the sudden motion causing Henk’s eyes to follow. She jerks her head back up to look him in the eyes and leans in slightly. “Then it’s a good thing I don’t answer to her, isn’t it.”

She can see her words hit their intended target. Even pirate captains firmly in Eleanor’s grasp did not particularly like to be reminded of that fact. Even pirate captains who got decent leads from her. Henk’s face darkens for a moment. “I’m happy to take your coin as well as your ship’s leads, Miss Wickham, is it?”

She takes a seat opposite Henk and pushes her sleeves up, just far enough to partially reveal the tattoos on her forearms. While it is far from uncommon to see pirates with tattoos, it is transgressive for a woman, shockingly so. But Hope had determined years ago that she had no intention of ever returning to so-called civilization. And in situations such as this, in rough portside alehouses surrounded by strange men, it tended to keep them off-balance.

She plays cautiously at first, throwing some good throws, mixing them with enough clumsy ones that the men don’t get suspicious. The drink flows freely -- it must have been a good take indeed -- and soon the only player still sober is Hope, who has barely been sipping hers. A lady wants to keep her wits about her when playing a game such as this.

Hope wins her next three throws; the head for calculations and the steady hands she’s developed from taking precise measurements on rolling ship’s decks do so come in handy ashore. Henk and his men had been betting increasingly large stacks of coin, and from the suspicion on Henk’s face, Hope wonders if she overdid it.

Henk stands up abruptly and looms over the table. “These dice are loaded!” he snarls at Hope.

“They’re your dice,” she replies in the tone one might use to soothe a recalcitrant child. “I haven’t changed them out nor tampered with them. See?” She holds them out for him to inspect.

Behind her, Anne takes a step forward, hands on the grips of her cutlasses. Henk’s eyes flit from Hope to Anne, whose lip curls in a sneer. Henk must have decided that it would be a fool’s errand to face down the red-headed pirate and her twin swords; he settles back in his chair with the sullenness of chastised drunken masculinity. The game goes on. Several players decide they’ve lost enough coin to Hope and slip off.

One doubles back, stepping between Anne and Hope with a dagger in hand, just as Hope goes to make her next throw. Anne yokes an arm around his chest, yanking him off-balance, and lets the tip of her cutlass dig into his neck just enough to draw blood. “Don’t,” she warns. The man gulps and drops the dagger. She releases him, and he staggers to the door. Anne smirks in satisfaction.

Henk, though swaying with drink, seems to take this moment to come to the defense of his matey. He stands up so quickly that he knocks his chair over backwards, right into a pirate from another crew, who turns and punches Henk directly in the face. And then it’s on, the _Nightingale_ crew against, as far as Hope can surmise, everybody.

Swords at the ready, Anne stands guard while Hope swiftly gathers their not unsizeable prize from the table. This accomplished, Hope and Anne exchange triumphant grins while the brawl swirls around them.

She is relieved that apart from herself and Anne, their own crew has given this place a miss, though it’s got a small mezzanine, unlit but with a few tables. Anybody could be lurking up there...and does she spy two familiar figures, one tall and slim and clad in bright calicos, the other long-haired and muscular and appearing every inch the law-abiding God-fearing citizen’s image of the pirate menace, both with their eyes on her and Anne?

\--------------

Hope catches Vane watching her. Truth be told, he’d been there with Jack since before she and Anne came in. His plan to numb himself with rum abruptly changed when the women arrived; he couldn’t take his eyes off Hope, and he feels a strange pride at how she handled Henk. She beams up at him, and he feels his heart lighten. God, he adores it when she’s happy. He belatedly realizes that his quartermaster is talking to him.

“They have formed an _alliance_.” Jack casts a wide-eyed glance at Anne and Hope, who are dividing their winnings with the efficiency born of practice. “We must stay on their good side at all costs.”


End file.
